No Contest

The ESN president felt like a moron with his poster board, but this interview was arranged at the last minute, and he didn’t have time to get his PowerPoint slides transferred into whatever format the TV show needed. Still, the pie chart was eighteen inches in diameter and quite colorful. The sixty-six-percent share in pale yellow represented wins by U.S. competitors or teams. Bright purple, red, blue, green and orange were wins by non-U.S. competitors.

“The winners are still mostly Americans,” accused the interviewer, who had so much journalistic integrity his eyeballs were newsprint yellow.

“Give or take five percent, that’s about the same percentage of U.S. participants in any and all our events since we launched the network,” the ESN president shot back.

“Quite persuasive. But they don’t tell the whole story. What about the discrepancies in dollar winnings?” On the monitor, a freeze-frame of the poster board was displayed side-by-side with a professional-looking PowerPoint slide of a similar pie chart. “This is also a chart of wins from the same events, this time illustrating dollar winnings. The yellow is U.S. competitors and that’s eighty-seven percent The smaller slices are other countries.”

The ESN president gulped. The interviewer’s chart looked much more professional and persuasive.

“Looks to me like you’re letting the Americans win the high-profile, big-prize contests, then throwing some bones to the other countries on the smaller games.”

The ESN bigwig was sweating profusely. To his horror, the cameraman got a close-up of the beads of perspiration on his upper lip. “I’m not aware of these results so I can’t speak to them.”

“Since ESN began programming its biggest media events opposite the more traditional sports such as football, there have been no non-American winners.”

“That’s not true.”

“Our chart proves that it is.” The ESN president’s sweaty mouth was now split-screened with a big red pie chart that showed that one hundred percent of the winners were American.

“I’m going to have to investigate this myself,” the ESN president stammered. “I don’t see how this can be factual.”

The journalist nodded smugly. “I guess it’s up to the world to decide.”

Chapter 9

Remo was feeling like a big fat heel. Chiun was ticked at him for keeping secrets. When Remo asked Chiun not to come along today it only exacerbated the sour mood that had come upon him late the previous night as they roamed Revelry Hills vainly searching for a campground. Chiun reluctantly allowed the search to expand to a few other select Southern California zip codes, and finally agreed to take the first RV lot they could find. Remo could have said “I told you so,” but wisely refrained.

“We shall simply park at the All-Mart,” Chiun sniffed, as if this were a perfectly acceptable alternative. “There is never a lack of such places.”

Ever since he got the RV idea into his head, Chiun had been talking about the wonders of chain stores that allowed RVs to overnight in the parking lots. Since there were countless stores like All-Marts across the country, in every town and city, Chiun insisted they would never be without a place to park the new, mobile Castle Sinanju. The problem was that Chiun had probably never been to an All-Mart. Remo didn’t think the old Master knew what he was getting himself into.

They found an All-Mart in West Hollywood, and even the parking lot smelled bad. They parked there, regardless, and Remo thought that Chiun was beginning to see the impracticality of the Sinanju-mobile.

He found the address he wanted in Burbank and stuck on a fake mustache in the elevator. He hated it. It felt stupid, and he just knew it made him look stupid, no matter what the Romanian image consultant had claimed. The fifth floor was dominated by a perfectly made-up and manicured receptionist. Several office suites were in orbit around her.

Time to be charming, Remo thought unhappily.

“Hi. Romeo Dodd. I’m here to see, uh… Let me check my planner.” He pulled out the crumpled FedEx receipt and examined the smeared characters in a circle along one margin. “Dasheway? You have a guy named that?”

The receptionist, whose nameplate said she was named Dayla Darrin, didn’t show a hint of emotion. Maybe her face paint was too thick. “You do not have an appointment.”

“How do you know? You have his appointment book memorized?”

“I am personally acquainted with everyone on his appointment schedule today,” she droned. “I’m sorry to say I am not acquainted with you, sir.”

“You don’t sound sorry,” Remo answered. “Anyway, I don’t have an appointment. I’m here to pitch him a TV-show idea.”

“All proposals must be submitted by mail.”

“Don’t have time for that.”

“I’m sorry, sir.”